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Friday, June 18, 2010

BBQ Business Ideas

What choices do contest cooks have to combat rising expenses? For most contest cooks, starting a bbq business aimed at capitalizing on bbq contest participation seems viable. The basic choices are as follows:

--Start selling bbq rub

--Start selling bbq sauce

--Start a bbq vending / concession business

--Start a bbq catering service

--Start a barbecue website

--Pursue corporate sponsorship

On the surface, each of those ideas sounded promising to us. They certainly sound simple enough. How hard could it be?

We found a co-packer and started selling our bbq spice rubs at contests and to family and friends. If you're thinking of taking a similar approach, plan to spend at least $850 in start-up expenses, add another $300 or $400 if you want professionally printed labels for your bottles. To earn back the start-up costs, plan on selling at least 1,000 bottles of rub in 10 oz. bottles (600 if you decide to start with a larger 13 oz. bottle).

It would be much easier to sell bbq sauce in these volumes, but the start-up expenses are about 400% greater, so increase the sales to 4,000 small bottles (or 2,400 big bottles). After a little research with the health department and state regulators, we crossed bbq vending, concessions, and catering off the list quickly. The start-up expenses to comply with the legal requirements are nearly $20,000, plus rent on a commissary facility to store supplies and prepare foods.

I started two barbecue websites that do generate a small amount of revenue, but not nearly enough to support the cost of contests. If you have technical expertise, this might a viable alternative for you, but based on my "seat of the pants" knowledge level, it's not been the answer to our expense issues. Hint: YouTube.com, Twitter.com, and Facebook.com will help you increase your web site traffic if you use them strategically.

Which leaves one more option -- corporate sponsorship. I haven't put any efforts into obtaining a corporate sponsor for our bbq team and as difficult as it sounds, it is probably the best option on this list. And that brings us back to the lack of spectator involvement in the events. Without large numbers of spectators at bbq contests (I'm talking thousands), the corporate sponsorship is going to be hard to come by.

5 comments:

Another thing that a lot of teams seem to be doing is the BBQ class circuit geared at pros and joes. But that has the issue of being hard to be sustainable because of market saturation and non-recurring funds. Only so many people in a given area will take such a class and they will only take it once.

I agree. Classes can be a nice source of revenue for the top tier teams. But, I'm not sure how many people want to spend $500-600 to take a class from someone who hasn't already won the American Royal or Jack Daniels or KCBS TOTY.

I remember when these classes used to be priced at $250 or so, but now I've seen them as high as $750 not counting the cost of getting there and lodging once you're there.

Aren't the corporate sponsors who sponsor BBQ teams at competitions targeting the other cooks? I mean it's mostly charcoal, cookers, or rubs and sauces. Since there aren't thousands of spectators, I'd think they are aiming at the cooks. Just a guess though...

It could be. I don't discount the sponsors that we currently have in the sport. I appreciate each and every one of them. But, in order for more teams to share in the financial rewards of the sport, I think the cost of competing has to be reduced -- we need more and more sponsors to feel the confidence to become involved. To compete for Team of the Year, you need a pretty large check book balance.

I toyed with the idea some time ago. But because of my age and disability, I shelved it. I liked the idea though. And I'm a pretty darned good BBQ cook too. Also, I think that these days it may be out of reach for a lot of people, due to the economy being so grim! Good luck anyway.

About Me

Brian Pearcy competed in bbq contests sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society and Florida Barbecue Association. He has published more than 940 articles about bbq cooking. Brian authors two bbq web sites: The BBQ Guy and BBQ Blog. His prize winning bbq spice rubs have earned numerous awards.

Like many bbq enthusiasts, I've spent the last few years dreaming, thinking, and researching different types of equipment to use in a fu...

BBQ Tips

How to keep BBQ hot if you're not quite ready to eat it...

use an ice chest/ice cooler. Put some hot water in an empty ice chest, close the lid and let it set for 3 or 4 minutes. Drain the hot water and you've got yourself a portable BBQ warmer. We've kept pork butts warm this way for 6 or 7 hours.

How to keep your hands clean when cooking BBQ...

use powder free latex gloves. They come in packs of 100 at the local Sam's and will keep your hands clean. You'll maintain good sanitary practices too.

How to keep your spouse interested in the BBQ hobby...

get him/her involved in it with you. It's a lot of fun. You meet nice people and it's something you can do together.

How to keep your BBQ expenses in line with your budget...

Research all your purchases thoroughly. Make sure your purchase will do what you want it to do BEFORE you purchase it. For example, if you want to learn to cook whole hogs, you probably need to consider a big cooker or if you want to cook 10-15 racks spare ribs every weekend you're going to need something bigger than a WSM.

How to continually improve your BBQ recipes...

keep records of your cooking efforts including cook times, prepping techniques used and especially measurements for sauces or rubs and spices used. When you tweak the recipe for taste, only change one thing at a time--change the cook time, change the rub, change the sauce, but try to avoid completely changing everything all at once. Small changes to your technique and recipes will help you focus on the effects better and you'll be able to fine tune the product quality more efficiently.

How to BBQ Brisket

Brisket has become one of my favorite foods to barbecue. A pencil width slice of properly cooked brisket lightly coated with some Blues Hog BBQ Sauce is hard to beat.

I prefer to cook briskets in my Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM). I receive quite a few e-mails asking for help with barbecue brisket and thought I'd share some questions I received today.

Do you cook brisket with direct or indirect heat?

I use indirect heat and cook the brisket slowly at a temperature of 225-250 degrees.

Do you cook with fat cap up or fat cap down?

I begin cooking the brisket fat cap up for the first cooking segment. I don't flip until the brisket reaches 130 degrees or so. That's the point when the bark starts to harden a little bit. Then I flip it to fat side down. I used to skip this part but wanted a little more bark and found that this method will promote more bark formation.

Do you use foil?

I wrap in foil when the internal brisket temp is 165 degrees or if it's been cooking for at least 5 hours. Most of my briskets are completely done in 8 hours or so. I cook to an internal temp of 196-198 degrees and hold them in an Igloo cooler for a few hours to "rest" before slicing.

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